Jails are also risky because they hold suspects for short periods of time — sometimes only for hours — before sending them back into their communities, possibly after being exposed to infected people.
Correctional staff and prison inmates are also constantly being moved to balance out the population size, and in the process, coming into contact with people outside prison walls. State prisons throughout the country are not taking the necessary measures to protect the public, prisoners or staff, according to DeAnna Hoskins, president, and CEO of JustLeadership USA, an organization focused on reducing the prison population.
“They transfer prisoners from facility to facility. They are not testing them,” she said. “This is a super-spreader situation.”
After a major outbreak in San Francisco’s San Quentin Prison in late May, the US Appeals Court ordered the facility to cut its population to 1,700 people, or by one half.
Some states have decided to thin out their prison populations in the hopes of creating more space to allow for physical distancing by releasing prisoners who are either near the end of their sentence or who don’t pose a threat to the community. In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy freed more than 2,000 inmates in November to reduce the spread of the coronavirus there.
Prisons are facing another ethical dilemma when they impose lockdowns to limit interaction between inmates and staff. Civil rights advocates have observed that isolating people for long stretches punishes them for something that is not their fault and essentially creates a prison within a prison.
“They are stuck in their cells, and that creates a serious situation,” said Maes. “They don’t get visitations, outdoor activities or cafeteria time and that cannot be sustained.”
Hoskins said prisoners are afraid, getting sick, and worried they’re going to die. She likened the situation to “a burning building,” where prisoners are stuck inside without any help.
The vaccines could relieve those problems if prisoners could get them. It can be said that the lack of procedures in disseminating the virus in the correctional system is adding stress and unnecessary burdens to inmates’ lives and infringing on their rights as human beings.
“You are sentenced to prison, not to die,” King said. A telling statement indeed.